Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1887-10-01

taX,and more generally the poor man
who cannot. The circumstances of
men are so infinitely varied,
that no rule of tax diffusion applca-
bic to any class can be made. With
out attempting to sound the depths
of the matter in this brief article, or
to lay down any unvarying rule, it
may be pointed out that there can be
no scattering diffusion of real estate
tax unless there is produced on the
land many manufactured, mined,
agricultural, mercantile, ETC., values
which are to become the vehicles for
diffusing the tax.
Whether alone or in connection
with personal property, a real estate
tax is unjust. 1t commonly stays
where it IS placed in the case of the
poor man and it is commonly diff
fused by the rich man or corpora
ton. Hence in the diffusion system
the rich man bears taxation in pro-
portion to his consumption and use
of things, while the poor man not
only bears it in this measure, but he
has to shoulder his own unditfusable
tax besides. And not only this UNI
justice but the further injustice
should be pointed out, namely, that
mans consumption and use Of
things is not a correct measure of
his ability to bear the public bur
dens.
Under the present system the poor
man bears what is to him the heavi-
est burden of taxation, and the poor
and middle classes almost the entire
burden. An exclusive real astate
tax would make the case still worse.
1t follows from the facts pointed
out above that Henry Georges rent
confscation tax would confscate the
rent Of the poor and middle class
land holder in most cases, but not
that of the rich landlord, manufac-
turer, mine owner and railroad. The
rich would add the tax to price and
to rent, and the poor would have to
pay it, besides bearing their own I'M
ditfusable taxes.
Whoever would resort to taxation
for the purpose of working out a re-
form or establishing justice is play
ing with something that will do
more damage than good. After ex-
aiming the widespread and appar-
emily unsurmountable evils existing
in the proposition, the assessment
and the diffusion of taxes, one can
not help but believe that taxes
should be kept at the very lowest
amount called for by strict con-
struction of the public necessity
&. X. Holmes IN Work anil Wages.
A BIT OF CONSTRUCTIVE MURDER.
On the Haymarket the explosion
of a bomb killed a few policemen
seven in all. 1t is not probable that
this bomb fell out of the sky after
the manner of that Athenian mas
cot, the Palladium. But for all le-
gal evidence to the contrary such
may have been the case. At any
rate, cred" that the writer is, he
would not think of condemning the
sky itself on such testimony as liar
Gilmer's and that of the two ode
tectives."
BE all this rs it may, the eighteM
victim of the railroad massacre at
Chatsworth has just died, and the
criminal completely of the baronial
robber and murderer Jay Gould is
demonstrable beyond all shadow of
doubt as chief conspirator; nor has
the Reriev any hesitation whatso-
ever in declaring that he ought to
have been strung to q lamp post long
ago. Now, under Judge Gary's
comprehensive vindication of the
"social order as backed up by "Jus-
tice" Magruder's petty-fogging
"opinion" and Tom Merritt's statu-
tory crystalization of this mode of
lawnorder reasoning" the writer
may at any time become conspira-
tory principal i'll the stringlng-up of
Gould by mob or in the shooting
down of the said Gould by some
strangers, because of the publca-
ton of this squib; in which case
Billy, the manager, as well as Billy,
the devil, will have to expiate with
him the stringing-up or shooting